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•, Drafting Basics Ful l-size drawings head off joinery and design problems BY PHILIP C. LOWE They think that unless they're cutting wood, no progress is being made. Actually both time and material are being saved, not to mention a lot of head-scratching. This principle holds true for many forms of furniture-from simple to complex, from reproductions to original designs. The first of any piece of furniture is always the most labor-intensive. To be suc- M 68 FIN E \\'lO 0 0 \XI 0 R K I G any folks consider time spent at the drawing table to be time taken away from woodworking. cessful, both design and construction must be ironed out beforehand, so I do a fullsize drawing for every new piece I build. By laying out a design at full scale, you get a better sense of its proportions and size. Also, patterns and templates for curved parts can be made directly from an accurate drawing, which means you don't have to redraw parts that were sketched out at a smaller scale. The full-size drawing typically includes three views and a few other important de- tails and sections. The number of views and sections needed is determined by the complexity of the design. The basic tools for drawing My drawing table is a 4-ft. by 8-ft. angled surface covered with a vinyl mat and equipped with a cable-controlled parallel rule. But all you need to make accurate drawings is a large, smooth surface (like Baltic birch plywood or medium-density fiberboard) with two parallel edges to run Photos: Asa Christiana